Change your beatitudes, Ed

This past Sunday I chose to introduce the song “The Beatitudes” from the recording Word for Word. (WLP 008280) It’s a decent setting musically, but I was a bit apprehensive about singing it with the assembly. Obviously, there are a lot of words (it’s the beatitudes) and the arrangement uses a lot of syncopation in the verses. Still, I passed it out at a rehearsal (yep, rehearsal...more about that later) and we sang and played through it.

I figured the verses would be led by a soloist and we would bring in the assembly for the refrain. That meant the assembly would not be singing for much of the song. At least, that’s the way it was on the recording. Everyone played it great, and the singers sang the refrain easily. I told everyone, “I’m just not sure, yet. It’s not you guys, it’s the song. I need to think about it. I’ll let you know.”

That was Tuesday evening. I still wasn’t sure what we were going to do.

So, Wednesday (or Thursday, can’t recall) I get an email from Rick, one of our singers on Sunday and he says, “Hey! I have an idea about ‘The Beatitudes.’ Why don’t you just break up the verses? Sing the Refrain, verse 1, Refrain, verse 2, Refrain, Refrain?”

He was totally right. It made all the difference. Here's what we ended up doing:

Refrain (1st half): piano & solo voice
Refrain (2nd half): piano/guitar/voices unison
Refrain (all): piano/guitar/bass/light drums/vox with harmonies

Verse 1: solo
Refrain: full band

Verse 2: solo
Refrain: full band:

Verse 3 (which was the little turn-around at the end of verse 2- sounds like a Bridge): solo
Refrain KEY CHANGE: kick drum on 2 and 4/vocals with harmonies
Refrain: Full band

It made all the difference in the world. The assembly had plenty to sing. It worked great!

So, Rick reminded me of one of my own lessons on one of my own songs: don’t get stuck doing what the recording does! Sometimes you need to rearrange things a bit to make it work for liturgy.